Zaragoza Is An Amazing Story
STILLWATER -- Oklahoma State football experienced being part of a continuing miracle last Saturday in the Cowboys 47-7 win in Lawrence, Kan. As the Cowboys had complete control in the win over the Jayhawks in the third quarter, head coach Mike Gundy began substituting until 69-of-the-70 players that made the trip to Kansas had played. All players played except starting quarterback Spencer Sanders, who has been rehabbing an ankle injury that he suffered in the opener with Tulsa. On the final field goal of the contest, Kansas City-area back-up kicker Brady Pohl kicked the ball through the uprights after snapper Zeke Zaragoza snapped the ball to Tom Hutton, who held the ball for Pohl. It is Zaragoza that is the miracle.
His mother Chanin posted the news on Twitter for Oklahoma State fans to see.
When he was three-years-old , Zeke Zaragoza was diagnosed with Opsoclonus-Myoclonus Syndrome. OMS is a rare autoimmune neurological disorder that affects just one in 10 million people annually. It has no cure. It is usually associated with tumors and Zaragoza had a tumor that his body was fighting. The tumor was doing damage to his brainstem and he was in a wheelchair.
“I wasn’t able to function as a normal three year old kid would,” Zaragoza told Connor Morrissette of SBLive who wrote a feature story on Zeke Zaragoza in March after he committed to coming to Oklahoma State.
Zaragoza admits that he had lots of adverse effects including dizziness, lack of balance, anger, and he struggled to walk. He was told he would not play sports, but his parents engaged in getting Zeke an aggressive course of treatment that included steroid shots and chemotherapy. He had lots of therapy and took other medications.
“I’m glad that my parents wanted to treat it very aggressively because I might not be where I am now if we didn’t get aggressive doing that,” Zaragoza told SBLive.
Where he is today is playing major college football and he can say something the majority of college students cannot. He has played in a Division I college football game for a Power Five school. He is a miracle!
After seeing his OMS reside, Zeke became more active and played sports including football and Ontario (Calf.) Christian. Realizing he was not going to be equipped to play as a lineman at the college level, he reached out to Matt Wigley, a former San Jose State long snapper and coach. Wigley, a long snapping instructor, helped Zaragoza, who most of all helped himself.
"It was something that he wanted, given a shot, and he was really consistent on coming out for the training," Wigley said of Zaragoza. "He received an opportunity at Dort College and it didn't work out but then he came back to junior college and he got all kinds of attention in recruiting. He is a very dedicated person, dedicated to the art of snapping, dedicated athletically and academically."
Oklahoma State special teams analyst M.K. Taylor said he found Zaragoza when evaluating junior college snappers. They began communicating on Twitter and the connection was made.
Now, Zaragoza has become an inspiration of any young people that are told, "no." You can press on, dream, and work toward those dreams.
"I didn't know about that until recently," Wigley said. "It is amazing that he went through that at a young age and was told he wouldn't be able to play football. He didn't tell me about it because I think he wanted to train and work."
This is a tremendous story. I hope football fans will celebrate it. Zeke Zaragoza deserves the credit for his perseverance and determination.
